Follow on Twitter please: @rgroveslaw. I am the Director of the Business Law Program at Florida Coastal School of Law, which includes sports law issues. But before becoming an attorney I had a mother and father too. I was fortunate because if they gave me a penny I would owe them change. I became a tax judge and split the baby on occasion but tried most to be fair. After deciding I would rather be inspired to work harder and trust the journey than be uninspired and not work as hard, I went into private practice and became an equity partner of Howard & Howard Attorneys P.C., and counsel to Lewis & Munday, PC. I've represented multi-national corporations in multi-million dollar transactions and high profile entertainers in business and tax matters. Passion continues to be the plasma of progression as now I hope to share how good the profession can be to the new generation of counsel. So now I am a law professor, teaching business entities, securities, international business transactions, and the business side of sports. The passion includes writing. I authored a book, "Innocence in the Red Zone" regarding a client and former Michigan State head football coach Bobby Williams and several other articles regarding business, tax, and entrepreneurship. But my deepest passion - beyond family, is musical. I played piano for Magic Johnson's wedding, opened for Stevie Wonder, had a song recorded by Jerry Butler, and wrote a book about playing piano by ear with a soulful style - all eclipsed by writing songs for one's own wedding.

Garcia Fried Chicken Comments Should Bring Sponsor and PGA Consequences As A Deterrent And Business Strategy

Tiger Woods, champion golfer, drives the ball down range during the inaugural Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am Tournament, part of the AT&T National PGA Tour event, July 4, 2007, at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Woods donated 30,000 tournament tickets to military personnel to attend the event honoring soldiers and military families. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not so long ago, a 21-year old Tiger Woods became the youngest winner of The Masters. That accomplishment brought the following joking comment from celebrated former golf pro Fuzzy Zeller,

“You pat him on the back and say congratulations…and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year….or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.”

Sergio Garcia barely speaks with Tiger Woods. I doubt he knows his dietary habits. But lack of knowledge didn’t stop Garcia from joking that he would serve him fried chicken if he invited him to dinner – an obvious link to historic racist comments about African Americans.

Some will say, “it’s just an innocent joke” and therefore insignificant. But words matter. They can embody powerful principles that you can find in the US Constitution. You can find them in hate speeches of the KKK or the hundreds of white supremacy groups now patrolling in this country. Words also matter because they tell us what we value as a culture and are a way of communicating messages we either applaud or abhor.

While this chicken link to race is nowhere near as heinous as hate speech, the question raised is whether it is nonetheless deserving of an adverse consequence, and if so how severe. In some ways, the response to such comments is more telling than the comment itself. After the comment was made and publicized Tuesday, Garcia held a press conference and apologized profusely. No Garcia golf sponsors have reported a withdrawal of their support. The PGA official statements and those of Tiger Woods say it was bad judgment, wrong-headed, but it’s time to move on. So the consequence was a little public chiding, but no lost income or other adverse consequence.

That would all be fine in a vacuum but golf is trying to grow. It is already fairly saturated with the wealthy and middle-American whites of the country. Its growth is very clearly to come from women, minorities, and the young, but in the US and third world countries that have predominant people of color and love Tiger Woods. As a matter of principle, all of those valued constituencies abhor racist comments (not implying the aforementioned current constituencies do not) . Comments undeterred can lead to actions because the behavior was not nipped in the bud when it first arose. If the thought leaders of golf intend to make the young, the female, the minorities of the world more comfortable with the game, they should think more carefully about how those constituents would feel if no real consequence flows from hurtful comments. If the comments had linked women to cooking in the kitchen or inferior physical strength or slow play, I suspect there would be as much or more of an uproar and consequence from the PGA and sponsors.

More importantly, a sponsorship drop or two or some PGA-inspired income loss may be a deterrent to similar future comments. The PGA knows it has a vested economic interest in robustly supporting tolerance and diversity. So the public chiding may be adequate for the moment, but a missed opportunity to do more than just average. Zeller lost a few sponsors for his comments. Garcia is home free. The collective conscience of Sports America has not been polled on this to my knowledge but I suspect they are over it as a minor issue. But if golf wants to maximize the economic growth potential, something more would have been advisable because more than the general public those valued constituencies are slower to forget the comment and the response.

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